This book compiles a set of 26 papers that present the direct, practical experiences and results of a large number of local practitioners and experts that supported the Transboundary agro-ecosystem management project of the Kagera river basin (Kagera TAMP) during the period 2010-2015. The book has been compiled by the Land and Water Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to reflect the wide range of experiences, approaches and tools that were used for promoting participatory diagnostics, adaptive management and adoption of sustainable land and agro-ecosystem management (SLaM) practices from farm to watershed / landscape scale. The project was supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Governments of the four countries that share the transboundary basin - Burundi, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda and project partners. It is hoped that the lessons learned are considered and taken up by the Governments and the TerrAfrica partnership for scaling up and mainstreaming SLaM as part of the wider set of lessons learned from the 36 projects in 26 countries under the Terrafrica Strategic Investment programme, including Kagera TAMP.

This knowledge product is a compilation of good practices identified from the ex-post analysis of eleven FAO–GEF partnership projects. The projects were implemented across the world from 2011 to 2019 and are representative of the first generation of FAO-GEF projects. The broad objective of the FAO-GEF partnership is to help countries transform their food systems to improve land conditions, conserve biodiversity, and build their resilience to impacts of climate change while providing a healthy and nutritious diet for everyone. This partnership addresses a diverse range of topics, such as land, watershed and ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, disposal of agrochemicals, and marine and fisheries resource management. These good practices are in line with several actions detailed in "Transforming food and agriculture to achieve the SDGs: 20 interconnected actions to guide decision-makers (20 Actions Guidelines)". Like the 20 Actions Guidelines, these good practices aim to support decision-makers and stakeholders in their efforts to mainstream sustainable food and agriculture to drive progress towards the SDGs. Their application across these projects also demonstrates that the guidelines can be successfully translated on the ground.

Forestry and agroforestry education and extension programmes for forest and farm communities have not kept up with needs in many places. However, the success of achieving international sustainability goals and implementing global commitments with respect to sustainable production, halting land degradation, ecosystem restoration and climate change mitigation is contingent on having capacity in place at local levels, or building it, across a large part of the world’s rural lands. This publication reviews the current and potential application of farmer field schools (FFS) to strengthen the capacities and skills of smallholders and family framers in sustainable forestry and agriculture production. From 2020 to 2021, FAO conducted a stocktaking study to identify opportunities, challenges and lessons learned in the application of the Farmer Field Schools (FFS) approach on forestry and agroforestry. Through the review of over 400 documents (peer-reviewed and grey literature), 36 in-depth key informant interviews and a stakeholder workshop, this stocktaking identified twenty-one majors FFS programmes in forestry and agroforestry, with over 200 000 graduates distributed across every region of the Global South. Three decades of FFS experience on forestry, particularly agroforestry, has taken place in multiple geographic, environmental, and social contexts – from arid and semi-arid savannahs to high rainfall mountain environments. This experience represents a diverse, well-tested, decentralized and, locally situated knowledge base on which to build future programmes aiming at strengthening farmers and forest dwellers’ capacity to create sustainable agricultural systems that include trees and perennial crops. This stocktaking argues that though enhanced understanding of agro-ecological dynamics and farmer-led experimentation, the FFS can enable farmers across the globe to sustain or improve productivity while reducing their dependence on externally based inputs. Forestry and agroforestry applications promise to enhance the environmental integrity and socio-economic impacts of FFS, mainly by increasing the presence of perennials in production systems, useful for stabilizing food security and strengthening on-farm ecosystem services.

This report summarizes the main findings from the project implementation by applying DSF which integrates land degradation assessments, SLM implementation, SLM mainstreaming and scaling-out and knowledge management for informed decision-making at local, subnational and national levels. The results of the project as well as the Mainstreaming Strategy developed can serve as a guide for decision-makers in developing landscape interventions as well as programmes on natural resources management that will build the resilience of communities.

Satisfying the changing food habits and increased demand for food intensifies pressure on the world’s water, land and soil resources. However, agriculture bears great promise to alleviate these pressures and provide multiple opportunities to contribute to global goals. Sustainable agricultural practices lead to water saving, soil conservation, sustainable land management, conservation of natural resources, ecosystem and climate change benefits. Accomplishing this requires accurate information and a major change in how we manage these resources. It also requires complementing efforts from outside the natural resources management domain to maximize synergies and manage trade-offs. The objective of SOLAW 2021 is to build awareness of the status of land and water resources, highlighting the risks, and informing on related opportunities and challenges, also underlining the essential contribution of appropriate policies, institutions and investments. Recent assessments, projections and scenarios from the international community show the continued and increasing depletion of land and water resources, loss of biodiversity, associated degradation and pollution, and scarcity in the primary natural resources. SOLAW 2021 highlights the major risks and trends related to land and water and presents means of resolving competition among users and generating multiple benefits for people and the environment. The DPSIR framework was followed in order to identify the Drivers, Pressures, Status, Impact and Responses. SOLAW 2021 provides an update of the knowledge base and presents a suite of responses and actions to inform decision-makers in the public, private, and civil sectors for a transformation from degradation and vulnerability toward sustainability and resilience.

Interdisciplinary volume considers how nine arid/semi-arid river basins with irrigated agriculture will survive future climate change, siltation, and decreased flow.

The aim of this report is to define the strategy for the Science and Policy Interface under Component 1 of the Resilient Food Systems Programme (RFS) Hub. Under this component, FAO and UN-Environment Programme, in partnership with RFS country projects and a range of other actors and platforms and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, aim to address institutional and policy barriers to inclusion of ecosystem services-aware approaches into policies and investments for improved and sustainable smallholder agriculture and natural resources. The focus of this component is the facilitation of dialogue, models, policies, and institutions that bridge the agricultural and environmental agendas and constituencies, at various scales.

The review was conducted with the aim to provide guidance for future engagement/investments, in particular in the context of recent AU declarations on agriculture and on land restoration by NEPAD, GEF, TerrAfrica, the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahel and Sahara (GGWISS), UN agencies and other donors. This paper provides an abridged summary of the findings for easier access by country policy / decision makers, agencies, development partners and donors, as a basis for informing future interventions for scaling-up sustainable land management (SLM).

Organic waste composting is another excellent example to demonstrate the power and the benefits of nexus thinking. Even though organic waste composting itself is not a new topic, those who want to start a new project or align an ongoing project with nexus thinking, find it difficult to gather the necessary information. With nine case studies from four continents, this book aims to fill above gap in literature. While current literature on composting is often found to be limited to either soil/agriculture sector or waste management sector, this book presents a combined point of view. This open access book starts with an introductory chapter that describes the need to bring the waste management aspects and soil nutrient management aspects of compost production into one integrated theme. The relevance of nexus thinking and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also presented in this introduction. The first three chapters after the introduction covers composting from the solid waste management and its policy aspects, taking examples from three developing countries. The next three examples are mostly about the benefits composting can provide to the soil and agriculture. These examples are also from three developing countries, but with a mixture of urban as well as rural settings. Last three chapters present more insight into the latest developments taking examples from Europe, as well as new methods adapted from the traditional styles from Africa.

The dominance of insular, supply-side technocratic thinking has posed a major challenge to improving water governance in the face of mounting resource scarcity, which has itself been accentuated by climate change. During the 1990s, global discourse moved from supply-driven sectoral interventions to more holistic approaches to water governance as part of larger socioeconomic and environmental processes. Integrated water resources management (IWRM) emphasized demand-side water management and used prices, participation, entitlements, laws and regulations to strengthen water governance at hydrological rather than territorial units. More recently, there have been pleas for more integrative approaches that link land, water, energy, food, livelihoods, the environment and other spheres – each with its own, often insular, governance structure. The evolution in global thinking reflects the need to meet growing human needs by innovating approaches that enhance resilience and the sustainability of landscapes, the biosphere and the Earth as a whole. To this end, the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus advocates that society is better off seeking system-level balance rather than maximizing sectoral objectives. The nexus approach has produced prolific analytical literature over the past decade but integrating it into policy and governance faces many challenges. This review paper explores these challenges by focusing on the WEF nexus in action. We compare the nexus in several water-stressed areas of the world including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, China, Bangladesh and Gujarat (India), with additional evidence drawn from other places such as Morocco and Punjab-Haryana. We synthesize these case studies to examine the actual state of play in different locations and tease out practical lessons for mainstreaming nexus thinking in water policy and governance. The key conclusion is that specific contexts, contingencies and constituencies drive national and sub-national policies. Directing the outcomes towards the optimal nexus depends on the nature of the state, investment in institution building and, above all, ingenuity in policy design and implementation to overcome resistance to change and strengthen political capital for the leaders who back such policies.